Allan Lichtman posted a year-ahead forecast of his Keys model, which can be accessed here. Although the Keys now consider Occupy Wall Street (in the Social Unrest key) and Solyndra (in the Major Scandal key), the coding of the Keys did not change compared to the last udate in June.

Obama still wins 10 of the 13 Keys and is therefore predicted as the clear election winner. That is, even if the economy would dip into another recession in 2012 (which would change the coding of Key 5), the forecast of the Keys model is in favor of Obama. Note that this is contrary to many econometric models that incorporate economic measures such as GDP growth as predictor variables. For example, Ray Fair's model predicts Obama to lose the election if the economy is going into another recession.

The Keys to the White House is a system for predicting the popular-vote result of American presidential elections, based upon the theory of pragmatic voting. America’s electorate, according to this theory, chooses a president, not according to events of the campaign, but according to how well the party in control of the White House has governed the country. If the voters are content with the party in power, it gains four more years in the White House; if not, the challenging party prevails. Thus, the choice of a president does not turn on debates, advertising, speeches, endorsements, rallies, platforms, promises, or campaign tactics. Rather, presidential elections are primarily referenda on the performance of the party holding the White House.

Retrospectively, the keys model accounts for the outcome of every American presidential election since 1860, much longer than any other prediction system. Prospectively, the Keys to the White House has correctly forecast the popular vote winner of all seven presidential elections from 1984 to 2008, usually months or even years prior to Election Day. For more information on the Keys model, click here.